Chapter 2 - The Search for Home Begins

Frodo put the final touches on the page and held it up to inspect it. In his careful hand he had written:

In need of a home for female cat, age approximately six months. She is intelligent and friendly, and will be given at no cost to the right person. Please inquire of Bilbo and Frodo Baggins, Bag End, Hobbiton.

"What do you think, Sam?" Frodo asked as Bilbo set the table with tea and cakes.

"I think it's just fine, Mr. Frodo," Sam answered. To Bilbo he said, "Thank you for invitin' me to tea, Mr. Bilbo."

"You're always welcome, Samwise, as well as the rest of your family," Bilbo said. "Sugar?"

"Yes, please," Sam responded. "Mr. Frodo is going to put his sign up at the market," he added.

"I'm hoping someone will see it and come by," Frodo explained.

"Very clever, Frodo," Bilbo praised, as he raised his cup for a sip. "Much better to let any possible candidates come to us than to go seeking them out one by one."

"I do hope we find someone to take her in," Frodo said, thinking about the cat who was romping in the garden at the moment. "It has to be the right person, as I wrote on the sign. I'll not have her going to anyone who will not treat her with the gentlest care."

"I shall direct all inquirers to you, lad," Bilbo said with a smile. "They will have to endure your scrutiny if they wish to adopt her."

"Yes," Frodo replied, "They will."

~*~

Frodo posted his sign at the market on a large wooden board. He fastened it with a couple of small nails between a notice offering the sale of several bushels of apples and an open invitation to any interested parties to attend a quilting bee at the Proudfoot home on the following Sunday.

He arrived home to find a note Bilbo had left, stating that he had gone for a stroll and would be back shortly. He busied himself with tidying up the kitchen, and when he finished he retrieved a book from a shelf in the parlor and headed for the bench outside near the garden. He had just settled down and begun to read when he heard a voice.

"Hey, Frodo! Where's this little critter you're giving away?"

Frodo hid a frown behind the pages of the book and answered, "Really, Lotho, I hadn't thought you were really a cat fancier."

"Maybe I am and maybe I'm not," Lotho shot back. "That depends. Can the beast catch a mouse or is she as useless as you are?"

Frodo was preparing a sharp reply when the cat herself appeared and jumped into his lap.

"So that's the little thing there, eh?" Lotho asked, moving toward the bench. As he neared, the hair on the cat's back began to rise and her tail fluffed up to twice its normal size. She laid her ears back and growled low in her throat.

Frodo found the cat's behavior somewhat amusing. "I don't think she likes you, Lotho," he said calmly, attempting to soothe the cat.

"How would you know, imp?" Lotho said nastily and reached out toward the cat. She hissed and bared her claws, swatting at him.

"Are you convinced now?" Frodo asked, continuing to lightly stroke the cat's fur.

"Stupid cat," Lotho muttered. "Good luck finding a home for it." He turned to go but stopped as if a new thought had come to him. He turned back toward Frodo and smirked. "Why can't you keep the thing?" He asked. "After all, old Bilbo seems to enjoy taking in strays."

Frodo's expression darkened and the cat hissed at Lotho again. She jumped down from Frodo's lap and ran into the shed. Frodo rose to face his elder cousin. "I'll not dignify that with an answer," he said, closing the book with a sharp 'snap'. He moved as if to step past Lotho and re - enter Bag End, but the older tween gave him a shove into the grass - covered outer wall of the smial.

"What's the matter, Frodo? Unwilling to admit to being a mongrel nobody else wanted?"

"I see only one mongrel here, and a mangy one at that," Bilbo's voice came sharply from nearby as he made his way up the path. He prodded Lotho with his walking stick and said in a stern tone, "Off with you, Lotho, before I take my staff to you!"

Lotho smirked, but did as he was told. Bilbo would indeed lay his staff across the tween's backside, and Lotho knew it.

"Thank you," Frodo said with a smile.

"My pleasure, dear boy," Bilbo replied, draping his arm across Frodo's shoulders. "Don't let him get to you, lad. You are most certainly not a mongrel of any sort, nor are you unwanted."

"I know, but it's good to hear you say so," Frodo answered. "You should have seen how the cat reacted to him."

"I can imagine," Bilbo said with an amused grin. "A good judge of character, is she?"

"A very good one indeed," Frodo said, laughing. "I think she will likely let me know who she wants to go and live with in her own way."

"You go and settle her in the shed and I'll put tea on," Bilbo suggested. Frodo did as he was bidden. No other visitors came to inquire about the cat that day.

~*~

"Anything yet, Mr. Frodo?" Sam asked curiously as he and Frodo stood talking in the garden.

"No, Sam, not yet," Frodo answered. There had been a couple of inquiries, but nothing really serious. The one family who had seemed genuinely interested had brought a small child with them who had squealed and chased the cat up a tree in her haste to try to pet it. Frodo had decided that a household with small children might not be the ideal place for the gentle feline.

As they stood talking, an older female hobbit ambled down the path toward the lower end of Bagshot Row. Her shoulders were slightly slumped and her demeanor spoke of a general disinterest in the world around her.

Frodo watched her go by, then turned to Sam with a slightly perplexed expression. "Who is she, Sam? Why does she look so unhappy?"

"Mrs. Rumble don't talk much these days," Sam commented. "She's right surly an' I don't go to near her meself."

"I wonder why she's so out of sorts," Frodo commented as he watched her walk away.

"She lost her husband just a few months past," Sam said as he leaned on his shovel. "She ain't been very sociable since."

"I suppose I can understand that," Frodo said, thinking back to the loss of his parents when he was twelve. It had taken a while for his aunts, uncles and cousins to draw him out of his shell afterward. He had been disinclined to talk with anyone for very long, and had insisted that he just wanted to be alone with his grief.

Frodo looked down at his feet as the cat appeared and nuzzled him. He bent down to pick her up and an idea came to him. "Sam, what about Mrs. Rumble?"

"I don't follow you, sir," Sam said, a look of mild confusion on his face.

"I wonder if she would like a cat to keep her company?" Frodo scratched the cat's ears thoughtfully as he spoke.

"I don't know," Sam answered. "I'm too afeared of her lately to go an' find out."

"I'm going to ask her myself," Frodo vowed bravely. "I won't know unless I do, and perhaps this little cat would be a comfort to her."

"You're a braver hobbit than I am, Mr. Frodo," Sam remarked as he went back to digging.

Frodo laughed and looked again at the friendly cat. "Do you want to go and meet someone tomorrow?"

"Brrroww," she responded, and Frodo took that to be a positive answer. He decided he would drop by Mrs. Rumble's smial the following morning. He felt a flutter of uncertainty at the thought, wondering if she would shut the door in his face or hear him out. He was certain she wasn't as frightening as Sam made her out to be, and he contented himself with the thought that if nothing were to be ventured nothing would be gained, either.

~*~ To Be Continued ~*~